Not Your Average Friday

Friday started out as a day packed with details to take care of.  Quinn's birthday is this coming Friday and we were planning to have his party this weekend because Noah will be at camp the following weekend.  I was rushing through the morning, working to get the boys and I out the door to get to town to run all the errands we needed to accomplish.  You know, things like figuring out how to get a helium balloon filled with helium, pick up the birthday present grandparents had sent money for us to buy here, pick up last minute food items for the party.  Anyway you get the picture.

So we loaded up in the truck and headed out the gate.  Not more than 50 meters later, all those plans changed.  Our road is, well, bumpy?  I am not sure that even beings to describe it.  Remember this video?  Anyway, the 4Runner has a pretty high clearance and we've never had issues before.  Except that when we went over a bump, this time, the whole part of the car that connects the wheel to the body fell apart!  Yeah...not good.  Not good at all!  We were all fine.  Forrest even said, "Mom, it's a good thing we were wearing out seat belts!"  Yep!

I looked out the driver's side window and I could see the tire up by the rear view mirror.  Not good.  Not good at all!

One of the neighbors came over and in great English asked if I was ok, if I needed help with the boys, and brought me a glass of water.  Thank God we were so close to home!!  We got out, headed back home and called Noah.  And he wasn't in the office! But after a few minutes, the secretary found him and I through sobs explained that I thought the axe was broken.  And being the good man that he was he jumped right in the car and came home, bringing with him a maintenance guy from camp and a mechanic.

And somewhere in there, our neighbors came out too and began helping.  Turns out, we were riding on one bolt instead of 5!  God only knows how that happened...could it be the roads are so bad they twisted those bolts right out?  I haven't the foggiest.

But I do know that from what everyone who knows about these things said, this was God's protection that it happened where it did.  We weren't going more than 5 or 10 miles an hour, we were on our little road very close to our house and all we felt was a bump.  If we had been going faster, on the side of a mountain, we could have flipped the truck and things could have been deadly!

 

In what seemed to be a miracle, about an hour after he got home, Noah was able to drive the truck back into our driveway!  It's still not totally road worthy and we don't have a complete damage assessment yet.  Today he'll take it to the mechanic's shop and we'll go from there.  We know it needs a few bolts and some body work at this point.  

Boy. What a day.  And all just one day after we got the license situation worked out.  We're thankful for God's protection, and that it appears as if the repairs aren't going to be too extensive.  Always something around here!

"Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.'" -James 4:15

Update:  The truck is now in complete working order!  Safe and the body work is all taken care of too.  Thank the Lord!